Review by: Nick Gasse

Vanquish is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. On the surface, it’s your unassuming Western third-person shooter, complete with space marines and big guns. Look past that, though, and it has all the charm and quirkiness that we have come to expect from Japanese studios – in particular, developer Platinum Games.

Following the same formula as the Kyoto-based developer’s previous title, the brilliant Bayonetta, Vanquish takes a tried-but-true genre and flips it on its head, essentially reinventing it. If Gears of War pioneered the ‘stop and pop’ shooting play style that encourages players to take cover while methodically dispatching enemies, Vanquish has developed a ‘hop and pop’ approach that applauds those who dart back and forth across the battlefield shooting with wild abandon.

This devil-may-care attitude is fostered by the Augmented Reality Suit (ARS) dawned by player character Sam Gideon. The rocket booster-powered armor enables our lean protagonist to cartwheel, spin and slide around Vanquish’s many arenas with the grace of a ballerina caught on an off-brand Slip n’ Slide.

At any given moment, Sam can initiate a boosting slide move, which propels him forward at breakneck speeds. Once he begins firing, time slows to a crawl, enabling him to line up critical shots. Boost and other actions, such as the one-hit kill melee attacks, are limited as they consume energy, so it’s up to you to manage the flow of each encounter.

With practice, you will be able to blend the game’s many actions into seamless attack combos. It isn’t unusual to vault over cover, narrowly slide past an oncoming missile, kick off one enemy while shooting nearby bad guys and then dash back into cover. It’s an empowering feeling few games ever get right, while Vanquish manages to do it several times per level.